How N.J.’s congressional delegation voted in February

Click here for a web version of the New Jersey Globe’s February 2026 vote tracker, with links to the bills and votes in question, or scroll to the bottom of this article for a PDF version.

The government began February in a partial government shutdown and will end the month in one, too, though the number of federal agencies that are officially going unfunded dropped quite a bit in the interim.

On February 3, the House narrowly passed a funding bill that provided full-year appropriations for most agencies and two weeks of funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which became a major sticking point after the killing of two American citizens in Minneapolis. New Jersey’s three Republican congressmen and Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-Tenafly) supported the bill, while the rest of the state’s Democrats in the House and Senate opposed it.

“[The] vote was about three key things: First, to keep the government open to support our seniors, veterans, and families; second, to bring home huge wins for Jersey families and communities; and third, to start the clock on two weeks of negotiations on essential reforms to ICE,” Gottheimer said of his vote.

Since then, however, bipartisan negotiations over DHS reforms have repeatedly fallen through, and the department shut down once again on February 14. Senate Democrats (including Senators Cory Booker and Andy Kim) have shot down multiple attempts to move a DHS funding bill forward in recent weeks, though billions of dollars in supplemental funding provided by last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill have meant that immigration enforcement activity, the most controversial part of DHS operations, has continued largely unhindered.

Other February votes of note:

• The House approved the SAVE Act, a bill to create nationwide photo ID requirements for voters, and just as when similar bills came up in the past, every New Jersey Republican voted in favor and every Democrat voted against. The far bigger challenge, though, is the Senate, where Democrats have shown zero interest in helping Republicans reach the 60-vote filibuster threshold; some Republicans have called for ending or limiting the filibuster in order to pass the bill, but GOP leaders aren’t enthused.

• House Democrats, with help from a handful of Republicans, were able to at last defeat a procedural rule that has long prevented them from bringing up anti-tariff resolutions on the House floor. Soon afterwards, they successfully put forward a resolution undoing Trump’s tariffs on Canada; six Republicans voted yes, but none were from New Jersey.

• A bipartisan air traffic safety bill known as the ROTOR Act failed on the House floor after the Department of Defense came out in opposition; the one New Jerseyan to vote against the bill was Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield), who said it was “not the right reform.”